Women Inspiring Women#

Sustainability at Thales

Type Insight
Published 06 Aug 2025

Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, it is a keystone for stronger sciences and thus a more prosperous, equitable society. Unfortunately, the fact is that women remain underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, both at school and in the workforce, including at Thales.

Women at Thales are walking in the footsteps of pioneers before them. Each of them is an inspiration, as the fight to strengthen the place of women in STEM is still far from over.

We need to demonstrate how the world of science and technology is accessible, eminently collective, and directly connected to societal issues.

Thales wants everyone, but more specifically girls and women, to feel empowered and legitimate in taking on careers in science and contributing to society to the fullest of their potential. We invite you to discover and share the inspiring messages of our colleagues to encourage girls to take up studies and careers in science.

Yannick Assouad, Executive Vice President, Avionics

Yannick leads a team of 12,000 people, tackling today’s complex aeronautics challenges and investing in the technologies of the future.

A modern pioneer, she follows in the footsteps of Mary Jackson, the first African-American female engineer to join NASA, who worked on all the supersonic aerodynamics used on the Mercury and Apollo programmes.

Katarzyna Kapusta, Research Engineer at cortAIx Labs in France

Katarzyna walks in the footsteps of Margaret Hamilton, a pioneer of modern computing from the 1960s recognised for writing the code which managed the Apollo Programme (NASA)'s space shuttle landing.

Juliette Mattioli, Senior Expert in Artificial Intelligence at Thales

Throughout her career, Juliette has often taken her inspiration from Sophie Germain, a pioneering mathematician from the French Revolution who assumed a man's identity to attend classes at the École Polytechnique and publish her work.

All Women Inspiring Women# testimonies

Sophia Joseph, Senior Engineering Manager at Thales in India. She leads the avionics services team globally. Just like her two sisters, she was inspired to undertake a career in science by her mother, who pursued her own passion to get a degree in science and become a teacher.
Sonu Goel, Vice-President for Navaids and Non-Radar Surveillance at Thales in United States. Throughout her career, Sonu often took her inspiration from Marie Curie to face the challenge of being the only woman in many boardrooms and executive committees.
Julie Cholet, R&D material engineer at Thales Research & Technology. Julie walks in the footsteps of Katie Bouman, an MIT computer engineer who helped capture the first image of a black hole in 2019.
Dunlin Tan, Director of Thales Research & Technology in Singapore. Dunlin explains how MIT’s Mildred Dresselhaus inspired her own career in science. The groundbreaking discoveries made by Dresselhaus – the first female Institute Professor at MIT – almost half a century ago laid the foundations for the understanding of carbon forms that we have today. Her research helped develop technology based on thin graphite, which enables electronics to be part of our day-to-day lives.
Julie Grollier, Director of Research at the CNRS/Thales Lab in France. Julie draws her inspiration from the iconic Marie Curie. The physicist needs almost no introduction. She carried out pioneering research into radioactivity (a word she herself invented), discovered two elements – radium and polonium –, was the first ever woman to win a Nobel Prize and one of the very few scientists in history to win it in two different fields. Her revolutionary work overturned established ideas in the fields of physics and chemistry, and shaped the world we live in today.
Anthea Comellini, R&D engineer at Thales Alenia Space. Anthea is specialised in satellite guidance, navigation and control. She talks about the example set for her by Italian engineer Amalia Ercoli-Finzi. Amalia Ercoli-Finzi has been a pioneering and integral part of the space engineering landscape for over five decades, teaching at the Polytechnic University of Milan – of which she was the first female aeronautical engineering graduate and is now an Honorary Professor – and serving as a scientific advisor for NASA and both the Italian and European space agencies. Her work has contributed to key space research fields, such as mission design, attitude control and docking manoeuvres.
Maddison Illsley, Change Manager working on Thales’s site in Crawley. Maddison finds her inspiration in the life and work of pioneering aeronautical engineer Beatrice Shilling. In the early 1930s, Beatrice Shilling studied engineering at the Victoria University of Manchester, before being recruited by the Royal Aircraft Establishment, the research and development branch of the Royal Air Force. It was there that she designed the RAE restrictor, which prevented flooding of the carburetor in the Rolls Royce engines of the RAF’s Hurricane and Spitfire fighters. Her contribution to aeronautical engineering played a key role in ensuring Allied victory in the Battle of Britain during the Second World War.

Our inclusion policy

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Promoting gender balance at all levels

Thales is taking concerted action to attract more women into careers in science and technology – persistently male-dominated fields that account for the lion’s share of the positions on offer within the Group. Our far-reaching gender-balance policy places a particular focus on encouraging and supporting women to advance to senior roles.

Gender Equality Index - France Representation of women and men in the leadership positions